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A Rare Find in an Old Barn

Several months ago some people brought in some Redwood they found in an old barn at an abandoned homestead near here.
There were some big slabs of old growth Redwood and a crusty old grey chunk of wood.
The slabs got used for a project and the crusty old chunk was just set aside by the guy who does the grunt work here.
I had walked past the chunk for months ignoring it and then one day I was straightening things up and went to move it.
It weighed about 3 or 4 times as much as I had expected.

That got me curious so I brushed off some of the residue and the outer surface showed some potential.
This photo shows the first piece cut from the top of the chunk.

When I looked at the chain sawn surface it was looking really good.

We cut a couple slabs and I took the piece that was the most solid. I cut in between the flaws and was able to get several good blocks.
This block was about 6" x 2&3/8" x 1&1/4". Weighed just under 3/4 of a pound. Normal Redwood would weigh between a half and a third of that weight.

Just going by my own estimations it seems this Redwood is comparable to Blackwood or Cocobolo in hardness and density. I have only found Redwood this dense once before. I never could find any when I was searching for it and here I pretty much tripped over a piece.

These are the blocks I was able to get from the chunk of wood. They are in the web store now. Really clean background coloring and a bit of a metallic lustre along with dark contrasting eyes. Pretty nice Redwood if you ask me.